SOURCE: Hicks, Jack. “To Make These Bones Live: History and Community in Ernest Gaines's Fiction.” Black American Literature Forum 11, no. 1 (spring 1977): 9-19.

In the following essay, Hicks traces the evolution of Gaines's concern with black history and community from Catherine Carmier through The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, highlighting the accompanying shift in his use of materials and fictional techniques to suit his evolving vision.

With The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), Ernest Gaines has become one of our most highly regarded Afro-American writers. While Miss Jane Pittman is his signal achievement, the world of the novel is identical to that of his three earlier books—Catherine Carmier (1964), Of Love and Dust (1967), and Bloodline (1968).¹ All of Gaines's work is seeded in a basic land derived from his native Pointe Coupee Parish in Louisiana: extending chronologically from 1865 to the mid-1950s; geographically, from the winding bayous and tablelands to...